


Kissed the Girls and Made Them Cry

by athousandwinds



Series: A Fine and Private Hell [3]
Category: Sweeney Todd (2007)
Genre: F/M, Misogyny, gratuitous Latin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-05
Updated: 2008-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> The Maid of Orléans is the Whore of Babylon. Nevertheless, the judge is the one burning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kissed the Girls and Made Them Cry

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. The girl had been christened well, his little Saint Joan. The Maid of London, and the one who was burning was the judge.

Some evenings alone in his study, replete with rich wine and content by candlelight, he had conjured Johanna's image. Always something pure, by her very nature; young, fresh-faced, long fair pigtails hanging down her back. Sugar and spice. And he would close his eyes and think of her as she was in unguarded moments, when she didn't know he was watching. Her smooth, silent movements, the innocent gravity of her eyes, the beauty of her hands. He would think of her bent over her embroidery, cloistered in her chambers like a novice. Her smile so rare these days, and it had never been anything so vulgar as a grin was reserved for her lark, and, in his thoughts, for him, too. He could envision her older, her arm tucked through his as they attended a ball. The sailor boy might be there, as some captain's catamite, and he might feast his eyes lasciviously on Johanna all he liked then, for she would be his wife. And if she were a good wife, Caesar's wife, he would be an uxorious husband. It befitted a man of high standing to be generous, to allow his better half some small favours.

In his study, during those long, languid evenings, he would let himself think of the darker side of married life. No quarrels, not at all; Johanna would accept his authority as a wife as she had as a daughter. He knew she was capable of utter devotion; such things were in the blood. Once she was persuaded to see him in such a light, when she was persuaded to marry him, it would all come right, like the moment in a trial after the jury have returned and the foreman gives the prosecutor the nod.

But there were other evils in the world, and he would give her freedom from the fear of them. He would be kind to her, oh, so kind, as he had been to her mother. But Johanna, brought up under his wing, knew not to fear him. She would not take flight. And here he would think of Johanna with her hair unbound, spilling over her white shoulders, thanking him for the day he carried her home from that squalid little room in Fleet Street, thanking him for everything, thanking him for a little more than that. Sometimes, when he brushed a finger over the nape of her neck, she had let out a gasp. He had seen her tense, heard her breathing quicken. So would she cry out when he thrust into her, her virgin flower squeezing around him. Flower such a ludicrous name, when all of Johanna was a flower. A beautiful, blossoming snowdrop, heralding a new spring for an old man.

On nights when he sat back and thought of this, he often came to himself slowly, as if waking from a mad fever. His trousers were always open and his hands sticky; when he moved, the linen on his back peeled away with unpleasant sluggishness. A moment with his handkerchief solved many of his difficulties, but the _delectatio morosa_ remained, leaving him loath to sleep. He never passed Sunday evenings this way; it seemed churlish to ask God's forgiveness in the morning and spend it the same day.

Tonight was not a Sunday, nor did he any longer feel the need for repentance. Whores attracted gentlemen deliberately, for money to feed and clothe themselves, and Johanna had been the cleverest of them all. How brilliant, to hide one's iniquity under a veneer of virtue; how unutterably, damnably sly? He might have felt a flicker of pride, but that her scheming had been directed at him and it was his profession to be disgusted at duplicity and double-dealing. Her cunning was undoubtedly native, she had concealed the other side of her face in the same way that Lucy Barker had concealed her entire self all these years.

What a fool he had been, to take up with what was, after all, a nymph of the pavement. He wondered if Bamford knew what Johanna was; decided he could not. He would not flatter himself now that he could compare with the charms of a rough sailor, ready with his coin, but most men were a better prospect than Bamford.

For old times' sake, he watched her through the peephole before he entered. She was face-down on her bed, weeping like a courtesan whose jewels have been stolen, as if every sob was close to vomiting. Her dress was rent badly at the bodice where he had torn at it in his fury. She had deserved a worse beating than the one he had given her. Women of the street put up with such every night.

He opened the door without knocking, and Johanna paused in her orgy of grief. He stood there, looking at her, and gradually her hitching breaths came less often and she pulled herself upright. Her jaw was jutted out, insolent slut, and her wet eyes mutinous.

"How many miles to Babylon?" he asked rhetorically. "I see the Whore is here."

Something flashed in her face; he thought it was honest. Too late for that. Her bodice was gaping open, exposing one of her milky breasts. His eyes slid down to its soft curve; still so beautiful, even with her deceit. In a way, it made her more desirable; she no longer deserved his respect.

"I am sending you to Fogg's Asylum," he said curtly. "It is to be hoped that he will teach you obedience, at least; I doubt anyone can teach you virtue."

Johanna half-rose; her dress slipped down further. Her flush ran down to her collarbone; his eyes followed it. She gathered together the loose folds and held them tightly to her chest; her knuckles, pale before, turned ivory. "Sir, you cannot I beg of you "

"I can, in fact." _A caelo usque ad centrum_. It had been the first point of law he ever learnt; it had appealed to him. From heaven all the way to the centre of the earth, this man owns this object. A little archaic now, perhaps, but still a fine axiom. "Abigail will pack for you, since you cannot be trusted to do it yourself."

"I won't go," she said. She was such a stranger now, her obstinate figure one that he did not recognise as the quiet, subservient Johanna who he had desired as a wife. It would serve her right if he threw her down now, took her like the sailor would, like she wanted. He took a step towards her; she made a small movement towards the bed. Not as if one could rape prostitutes, after all.

"M'lud," came a voice suddenly. Johanna's shoulders dropped; one hand unclenched. Abigail, her maid, was standing behind him. Her homely face was uncomfortable; she had always been ill-at-ease in the house. "The beadle is in the drawing room, m'lud, waiting on your pleasure."

"Very well." He turned back to Johanna. "This is the last we shall be seeing of each other for some time, Miss Barker. Do you have anything to say to me?" It came out as rather more plaintive than he had intended; Johanna reacted with scorn. She gave a quick, sharp shake of the head and lifted her chin. He longed to slap her face, but there was no time.

As he turned to go, there was the creak of bedsprings. Johanna had fallen back onto the bed; Abigail darted past him to go to her side. He did not look back. Fiat justitia ruat caelum. Let justice be done though the sky may fall.


End file.
